On Dreaming (#18)

https://www.theartstory.org/artist/hammershoi-vilhelm/
I shouldn't be afraid to open up doors. Read on to find out more.

If you have been reading my blog since the beginning, you know that my dreams are frequently lucid and vivid. Some are dark and disturbing, while others are funny and absurd. All of them I find fascinating, and that is why I keep a dream journal.

Unfortunately, not all the dreams make it in there. Between the dreaming and my journaling, I have forgotten as many as I have remembered. On occasion, upon waking from a particularly powerful dream, I will take notes using my phone. However, most of the time I avoid that task, because falling back to sleep becomes a struggle.

Sometimes, when I have lucid, vivid dreams, I can recollect having them, but it is the details I cannot recall. And, yes, I mention that in my journal: "Last night I had a vivid dream, unfortunately, I cannot remember any details" or "I had dream, but all that I remember was that I was naked".  

Yet, there are times when I fail to dream at all. When these moments cluster together, I call them droughts. For me, lucid, vivid dreaming is another tool for analyzing my emotions concerning people, events, and ideas in my life. Even the bad, disturbing ones. So, when I am deprived of the experience for a long period of time, or I forget too many details, I feel an emptiness. The past few months, I have suffered quite a few dry spells and memory gaps.

Then, like a monsoon, the dreams flood back into my mind. Despite the overwhelming emotional force that washes over me, I am grateful for their return. Prior to last week, I was suffering one such drought. And then, beginning last Monday, the first of a four dreams arrived, the last two occurring these past two nights.

For brevity, I am only going to share the last one. Also, last night's dream contrasts well with the last dream I shared on this blog. That one was long, complicated, and disturbing. It involved one of my two daughters. This one was short, direct, and intense. My other daughter was in it.

One last thought before I describe it. I should have just opened the door.

It was at night. My daughter and I were standing in a room with a door that led outside. The walls seemed fake, like we were standing on a set of a television show. It even felt like a wall was missing. Except for the two of us and the door, the space was empty, and the walls were painted a maroon color, but otherwise bare. My memory of the dream begins with me already against the door, and the sense that something, or someone, was trying to enter. My daughter was at arms length, and right behind me. I do not know if I was keeping her back, or if she was hesitant to move closer. However, I do recall struggling to keep the door closed, and unable to lock it shut. At least twice, the door opened enough for me to see a dark mass on the other side. Each time, I fumbled for the door handle, and pushed my weight against the door. Then, just before waking up, I clearly remember standing there at the door, taking a step back, and thinking, "Maybe I should just let it in."            

Confessions (#21)

I believe I have referenced this work by Norman Rockwell before. I love it.
There is something about the look on her face. It is real, not perfect. Tired, but grateful.
Like good teaching. And, it is funny that tonight, for the first time, I noticed
the broken chalk, chalk dust, and eraser collected at her feet; the eraser on the head
of one student; and how one of the children wrote "Happy Birthday Jonesy" on the board.
Between the sincere kindness of  her students, the mess on the floor, the silliness of a rogue eraser,
and someone daring to call the teacher by their first name, this could have been any one of my classes.  

For good or ill, I allowed my high school students to challenge me. Daily they would question my curriculum and pedagogical choices. And each day, I would indulge their attempts to avoid what I thought best for them. Perhaps it was naivety. Maybe it was the culture of the that school. And while blaming an entire generation, or just the ignorance of youth, would soothe my guilt, deep down I know a part of me just gave up. There is way to give students the freedom and structure they require to learn effectively. But I never discovered it during those thirteen years of teaching.

In addition, during my career at that "little school in the woods", I wore many hats. There was the hat for teaching. Another for administrative work, like accounting, record keeping, communications. Then there was one for marketing, both digital and print. In addition, on Fridays, I would mop the gym and classroom floors. Every day, whether sending out an email on behalf of the headmaster to some irate parent, paying bills and printing invoices, redesigning the website, or just taking the garbage bags to the dumpster, I was doing more than just teaching.

One day during class, while my students hounded me with a request (I believe it was about a field trip), frustrated, I blurted out that I "had a million things to do". And true to form, without skipping a beat, one of my students, an annoyingly lovable one, quipped, "Alright, list them for us, these one million tasks."

Sigh. And true to myself, I surrendered, and began rattling off things I had to do. 

"First, there is the email I need to send out to your parents about next week's event. Second, I have to order the chairs for the event. Third, I have to sit down with the headmaster, and create an ad for the local newspaper. Fourth, the garbage cans in the gym need to be replaced. Fifth..."

I believe I made it to about twenty. What happened next is beyond my memory. Or I buried it deeply with a lot of regrettable or humiliating experiences from my days of teaching.

So, why am I thinking of this particular recollection? Well, I was going to begin tonight's post differently: "There are a million things swirling in mind tonight that I feel like I am drowning in them." And that is when the memory snapped into focus. Then I searched through the titles of my previous posts, hoping to find something better than "A Brief Interlude" or "A Deep Breath". That is when I spied "Confessions". 

And here we are.

I could indulge you, dear reader, like I did my students, and start cataloging all the thoughts bombarding my mind right now. It would not be a million, but it would easily exceed twenty. If I had to guess, a hundred sounds about right. But fortunately, for the both of us, none of you have ever asked me to list them. In addition, many of my thoughts would be too embarrassing to share. Indeed, I would end up humiliating myself and others. Some are typical, while others, trivial. Then there are the repeats, for those who have been regularly reading my blog, or listening to me when I whine. Finally, and simply, I do not have the time, the energy, or the will to present them in some interesting and witty manner.

So, no list for you.

Well, maybe one:

1) Fold the laundry;

2) Wash the dishes;

3) Write a blog post;

4) Daydream about how people will react to it when they read it.        

A (Sort of) Book Review (#1)

I am reusing this one, because I think I am heading
into a migraine; therefore, I am skipping out on a
search for a new image. 

At some point in my blogging, I wrote a post that I intended to be an introduction to a series on my reading habit, and all my struggles maintaining it. That series petered out: the mediocre sequel turned into a crappy epilogue. Then I tried to combine my reading and writing goals by attempting to write book reviews. Like most of my projects, nothing came of it.

Maybe, until now?

This past week, over the course of three days, I consumed two works of fiction. Well, one novel, and an autobiographical graphic book. However, I believe the author of the latter would agree that her account contains fictional elements, placing it outside the realm of something like someone's published memoirs. And since I am trying to expand beyond my reading comfort zone (i.e., non-fiction), I will include it as fiction.

Both titles arose from those ever growing banned book lists sweeping the nation. The first is The Push by Ashley Audrain; the second, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel. Having read them both, I see no reason to prevent teenagers from reading either work. Sure, I would be reluctant to use them as required reading in a high school setting. Neither reflect exceptional use of the English language. So there literary value would not trump their uncomfortable content. But I would not deny my daughters the opportunity to pick them off a school library shelf and surrender themselves to what lies within those pages.

While the content in both books contain controversial topics that would make even adults uneasy, their unflinching approach to child abuse, motherhood, repressed sexuality, trauma, and death, is delivered intelligently and creatively. None of it is pornographic. Even the sex scenes.

[Sorry, narrating that two people fucked and enjoyed it is not explicit; including illustrations of one woman's head between that of another, or a naked cadaver with its penis displayed, is not porn. Some people may not like to read such passages, or look at such images. Yet, neither come close to the experience of pornographic images and explicit texts. Trust me, teenagers are seeing much worse on their phones.]

For me, I am glad I read both books. While I figured out the ending to The Push within the first few chapters, Ashley Audrain's writing style, a combination of first and second person, and the characters themselves, kept me going. It did no read like trauma porn. Instead, I experienced the unfortunate lives of regular people struggling with their problems. And I witnessed three different types of motherhoods, none of them perfect. A few times, I even teared up a bit. It would be a book I could recommend to the people that I know. If they want a quick, depressing story. 

As for Fun Home (a play on "Funeral Home"), it is a book I cannot recommend as easily. Indeed, I can think of maybe two of my readers who would appreciate it. The content is depressing, and the discussion centers on the author's struggles with sexual repressions, not just in herself, but in another person. I learned a lot about how oppressive and destructive social norms can be on a person. But that is not why I would hesitate to promote this book within my social circle. While I consider myself an intelligent person, I am aware that many more people are smarter and better educated than I am. And this author is one of them. She uses a lot of literary and mythical references. There are plenty of quotes from Proust and Joyce, two authors who are way beyond my understanding. And the entire book draws on Icarus and his father in a way that I find confusing. Finally, it is all delivered in a structure that weighs down on you intellectually and emotional. It left me exhausted.

Perhaps that was the author's intention?  Drag me down just as her childhood has been a burden for her? Confuse me with the esoteric words and themes of literary giants as she was confused by her emotions and family dynamics? Leave me weary and drained, as her childhood left her?

In the end, I am grateful for experiencing both books, but I doubt I will ever return to them.

Take that observation however you see fit.         

As for me, I have two non-fiction books to read before Wednesday. One is about the joys of Algebra; the other about better ways of thinking.

Hey, that is how I roll.